Warning! This constituent is not allowed to volunteer!

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Denise Hawks
Denise Hawks ✭
Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Photogenic
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
We have several constituents that my organization does not want to volunteer in any capacity.


We have removed their "Volunteer" constituent code, but is there any other way to alert staff that this constituent should not be assigned a job?


We have a new volunteer coordinator and she had a request from such an individual. She assigned her a job before reading her notes in her record.


I am thinking about using an attribute and then creating a business rule.


How do you handle this?


Thanks!
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  • Denise Hawks
    Denise Hawks ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Photogenic

    Jen Claudy:

    Attribute (or Note) and a Business Rule could work.  Some indicator on the Volunteer Tab and a Business Rule could work.  Also just an Annotation that Automatically Displays.  However, from experience, make sure you copy the Annotation Text to a Note as well, because someone can accidentally delete the Annotation (the only Security options are View & Edit), and then you don't know what it said or that you need to recreate it.  (I had a Note Type of Annotation, now we just type "Annotation" in the Note Title field and select the most appropriate Type...i.e. Volunteer Info.)

    Thank you, Jen! I think Annotation is what I need for this situation!

  • Art Bryman 2
    Art Bryman 2 ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    I would also recommend something like a  "BLACKLISTED: No volunteering" constituent code, and make it primary.  It shows up in red on Bio 1, you can create business rules, add it to queries, and it's easy to explain to everyone.  You can even add it to a custom Addressee/Salutation, and set that Addr/Sal to show up in the title bar of a constituent record.  Whenever that constituent is opened, you will see "BLACKLISTED" right at the top.  Here are screenshots of the addressee configuration, and a sample record:

    f92af0c16a47e5b8bbf55c2ced0d2b2e-huge-20  bef2065f93c20dd6e0cfd8327ede842b-huge-20


     
  • Faith Murray
    Faith Murray ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Art Bryman:

    I would also recommend something like a  "BLACKLISTED: No volunteering" constituent code, and make it primary.  It shows up in red on Bio 1, you can create business rules, add it to queries, and it's easy to explain to everyone.  You can even add it to a custom Addressee/Salutation, and set that Addr/Sal to show up in the title bar of a constituent record.  Whenever that constituent is opened, you will see "BLACKLISTED" right at the top.  


     



    I'd suggest sticking with the Attribute, Annotation, or the Business Rule, all of which will work. I don't recommend using a Constituent Code. We just finished cleaning up our Constituent Codes and eliminating over a dozen codes that really ought to have been Attributes or Solicit codes. Even though it does have a great deal of functionality in Queries, and shows on Bio 1, it will create a dysfunctional Gift Reporting system. Constituent Codes are intended to help you track what donor segments are donating to your organization. When you run your canned Reports, it's going to break down your Org's gifts into columns from your different Constituencies, and it will read (for example):


    Alumni                                           $2,000,000

    Board Members                             $1,500,000

    BLACKLISTED: No Volunteering              $52

     

  • Christine Cooke 2
    Christine Cooke 2 ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Denise Hawks:

    We have several constituents that my organization does not want to volunteer in any capacity.


    We have removed their "Volunteer" constituent code, but is there any other way to alert staff that this constituent should not be assigned a job?


    We have a new volunteer coordinator and she had a request from such an individual. She assigned her a job before reading her notes in her record.


    I am thinking about using an attribute and then creating a business rule.


    How do you handle this?


    Thanks!

    an annotation on their record -- because it will pop up as soon as you open the record
  • Amy Dana
    Amy Dana ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Denise Hawks:

    We have several constituents that my organization does not want to volunteer in any capacity.


    We have removed their "Volunteer" constituent code, but is there any other way to alert staff that this constituent should not be assigned a job?


    We have a new volunteer coordinator and she had a request from such an individual. She assigned her a job before reading her notes in her record.


    I am thinking about using an attribute and then creating a business rule.


    How do you handle this?


    Thanks!

    You might also want to use a Solicit Code such as "Do not ask to Volunteer" or something. I would also suggest an attribute so that when pulling queries you have two chances to make sure they don't get put on the list (I like redundancy for things like this). The business rule would be fine for looking at individual records but you need some sort of flag for when someone is pulling a list of people to invite to volunteer.

  • Zane Magnuson 2
    Zane Magnuson 2 ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic

    Nora MacDonald:

    Just a word of caution, if you have volunteers working in your database you may want to restrict who can see a largely phrased BLACKLISTED business rule pop up.  They may start asking questions or know the person.  Or just choose phrasing a little more discreet.

    The rule of thumb on stuff like this is never have info on a constituent's record that you wouldn't be comfortable showing that individual. There's no nice or soft way of saying "Do not let this person volunteer", but you might be able to introduce something like a tiered system where "Tier 1" volunteers are your super-dedicated, volunteering-every-day types, "Tier 2" are people willing to volunteer, and "Tier 3" are people that you don't want to let volunteer. That way you have something you can comfortably show the constituent while maintaining an internal system of basically blacklisting (similar to how medical professionals have abbreviations and jargon for things like "This guy's a perpetual whiner").

  • Phillip Bicknell
    Phillip Bicknell ✭
    Ninth Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic

    Zane Magnuson:

    Nora MacDonald:

    Just a word of caution, if you have volunteers working in your database you may want to restrict who can see a largely phrased BLACKLISTED business rule pop up.  They may start asking questions or know the person.  Or just choose phrasing a little more discreet.

    The rule of thumb on stuff like this is never have info on a constituent's record that you wouldn't be comfortable showing that individual. There's no nice or soft way of saying "Do not let this person volunteer", but you might be able to introduce something like a tiered system where "Tier 1" volunteers are your super-dedicated, volunteering-every-day types, "Tier 2" are people willing to volunteer, and "Tier 3" are people that you don't want to let volunteer. That way you have something you can comfortably show the constituent while maintaining an internal system of basically blacklisting (similar to how medical professionals have abbreviations and jargon for things like "This guy's a perpetual whiner").

     

    A "whiner" would want to know what the tiers mean. Better to hide it in something like a Volunteer Number which one makes a consistent length and a certain character in a certain position means something similar to the Tiers suggestion. Make it the last digit in the string/number and it'll be easy enough for people to spot but hopefully less obvious than at the start. And if one only has three or four Tiers, then, say, 2 and 7 could both mean Do Not Allow To Volunteer.


    And manually copying the Volunteer Number to an Annotation would meet the need of a pop-up alert for less aware users - you'd only do them on the black-listed records.

  • Denise Hawks
    Denise Hawks ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 1 Photogenic

    Phillip Bicknell:

    Zane Magnuson:

    Nora MacDonald:

    Just a word of caution, if you have volunteers working in your database you may want to restrict who can see a largely phrased BLACKLISTED business rule pop up.  They may start asking questions or know the person.  Or just choose phrasing a little more discreet.

    The rule of thumb on stuff like this is never have info on a constituent's record that you wouldn't be comfortable showing that individual. There's no nice or soft way of saying "Do not let this person volunteer", but you might be able to introduce something like a tiered system where "Tier 1" volunteers are your super-dedicated, volunteering-every-day types, "Tier 2" are people willing to volunteer, and "Tier 3" are people that you don't want to let volunteer. That way you have something you can comfortably show the constituent while maintaining an internal system of basically blacklisting (similar to how medical professionals have abbreviations and jargon for things like "This guy's a perpetual whiner").

     

    A "whiner" would want to know what the tiers mean. Better to hide it in something like a Volunteer Number which one makes a consistent length and a certain character in a certain position means something similar to the Tiers suggestion. Make it the last digit in the string/number and it'll be easy enough for people to spot but hopefully less obvious than at the start. And if one only has three or four Tiers, then, say, 2 and 7 could both mean Do Not Allow To Volunteer.


    And manually copying the Volunteer Number to an Annotation would meet the need of a pop-up alert for less aware users - you'd only do them on the black-listed records.

     

    Thanks to all for your suggestions. I made an annotation on the record to read volunteer notes before assigning a job. That is all our volunteer coordinator needs to have a "heads up". 

  • Christine Cooke 2
    Christine Cooke 2 ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    Denise Hawks:

    We have several constituents that my organization does not want to volunteer in any capacity.


    We have removed their "Volunteer" constituent code, but is there any other way to alert staff that this constituent should not be assigned a job?


    We have a new volunteer coordinator and she had a request from such an individual. She assigned her a job before reading her notes in her record.


    I am thinking about using an attribute and then creating a business rule.


    How do you handle this?


    Thanks!

    When I have had folks that are not supposed to be contact and/or allowed to do certain things I have put an Annotation on their record so that any time their record is opened there is a pop up window notifiying the viewer of the issue.

     
  • Bruce Denis
    Bruce Denis ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Photogenic First Reply

    Denise Hawks:

    We have several constituents that my organization does not want to volunteer in any capacity.


    We have removed their "Volunteer" constituent code, but is there any other way to alert staff that this constituent should not be assigned a job?


    We have a new volunteer coordinator and she had a request from such an individual. She assigned her a job before reading her notes in her record.


    I am thinking about using an attribute and then creating a business rule.


    How do you handle this?


    Thanks!

    Make sure there is a clear, sustainable, and well documented process for assigning volunteer jobs. My interpretation of this indicates your new VC had no knowledge of a process, query, or export to turn to when creating the assignments. Whatever you use, and I have seen some good advice here, make sure it is as simple as possible to avoid the temptation of unanticipated shortcuts. Simplicity promotes accuracy and sustainability. Documentation promotes repeatability and quality assurance.

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